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By Elizabeth Pennisi
Drive a nail into a tree and it will get stuck. So why doesn’t the same thing happen to the sharp beaks of woodpeckers? Scientists say they finally have the answer.
In a new study, researchers took high-speed videos of two black woodpeckers (Dryocopus martius) pecking hardwood logs in zoos and analyzing them frame by frame to see how the head and beak moved with each peak. The Bird’s Secret: An ability to independently move its upper and lower beaks, the team reports this week at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology virtual annual meeting.
Once the tip of the woodpecker’s beak touches the wood, the bird’s head turns slightly to the side, lifting the top of the beak up and twisting it the other way a bit, the videos reveal. This pull opens the beak a small amount and creates a free space between the tip of the beak and the wood at the bottom of the punched hole, so that the bird can then easily retract its beak.
Until now, scientists have believed that woodpecker beaks should be rigidly attached to the skull in order to successfully pierce wood and find insect prey. But in fact, the flexibility of the bill in these joints ensures that the bird’s signature “rat-a-tat-tat” doesn’t end at “rat.”
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